Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician and economist who served as the president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Congress (ANC). Before that, he was deputy president under Nelson Mandela from 1994 to 1999.
The son of Govan Mbeki, an ANC intellectual, Mbeki has been involved in ANC politics since 1956, when he joined the ANC Youth League, and has been a member of the party's National Executive Committee since 1975. Born in the Transkei, he left South Africa aged twenty to attend university in England, and spent almost three decades in exile abroad, until the ANC was unbanned in 1990. He rose through the organisation in its information and publicity section and as Oliver Tambo's protégé, but he was also an experienced diplomat, serving as the ANC's official representative in several of its African outposts. He was an early advocate for and leader of the diplomatic engagements which led to the negotiations to end apartheid. After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, he was appointed national deputy president. In subsequent years, it became apparent that he was Mandela's chosen successor, and he was elected unopposed as ANC president in 1997, enabling his rise to the presidency as the ANC's candidate in the 1999 elections.
While deputy president, Mbeki had been regarded as a steward of the government's Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy, introduced in 1996, and as president he continued to subscribe to relatively conservative, market-friendly macroeconomic policies. During his presidency, South Africa experienced falling public debt, a narrowing budget deficit, and consistent, moderate economic growth. However, despite his retention of various social democratic programmes, and notable expansions to the black economic empowerment programme, critics often regarded Mbeki's economic policies as neoliberal, with insufficient consideration for developmental and redistributive objectives. On these grounds, Mbeki grew increasingly alienated from the left wing of the ANC, and from the leaders of the ANC's Tripartite Alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and South African Communist Party. It was these leftist elements which supported Jacob Zuma over Mbeki in the political rivalry that erupted after Mbeki removed the latter from his post as deputy president in 2005.
As president, Mbeki had an apparent predilection for foreign policy and particularly for multilateralism. His pan-Africanism and vision for an "African renaissance" are central parts of his political persona, and commentators suggest that he secured for South Africa a role in African and global politics that was disproportionate to the country's size and historical influence. He was the central architect of the New Partnership for Africa's Development and, as the inaugural chairperson of the African Union, spearheaded the introduction of the African Peer Review Mechanism. After the IBSA Dialogue Forum was launched in 2003, his government collaborated with India and Brazil to lobby for reforms at the United Nations, advocating for a stronger role for developing countries. Among South Africa's various peacekeeping commitments during his presidency, Mbeki was the primary mediator in the conflict between ZANU-PF and the Zimbabwean opposition in the 2000s. However, he was frequently criticised for his policy of "quiet diplomacy" in Zimbabwe, under which he refused to condemn Robert Mugabe's regime or institute sanctions against it.
Also highly controversial worldwide was Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policy. His government did not introduce a national mother-to-child transmission prevention programme until 2002, when it was mandated by the Constitutional Court, nor did it make antiretroviral therapy available in the public healthcare system until late 2003. Subsequent studies have estimated that these delays caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths. His parents were Govan (born 1910, died 2001), a shopkeeper, teacher, journalist, and senior activist in the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), and Epainette (born 1916, died 2014), a trained teacher. Both Govan and Epainette came from educated, Christian, land-owning families, and Govan's father was Sikelewu Mbeki, a colonially appointed headman. Govan named him after senior South African communist Thabo Mofutsanyana.
left|thumb|220x220px|[[Lovedale (South Africa)|Lovedale, where Mbeki attended high school, in the 1900s.]]
Mbeki began attending school in 1948, the same year that the National Party was elected with a mandate to legislate apartheid.
Following the 1994 elections, South Africa's first under universal suffrage, Mbeki became one of the two national deputy presidents in the ANC-led Government of National Unity, in which Mandela was president. At the ANC's next national conference, held in December that year, Mbeki was elected unopposed to the ANC deputy presidency, also under Mandela. In June 1996, the National Party withdrew from the Government of National Unity and, with the second deputy, de Klerk, having thereby resigned, Mbeki became the sole deputy president.
The same year, as deputy president, Mbeki acted as a peace broker in what was then known as Zaire, following the First Congo War and the deposition of Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko. Mbeki also took on increasing domestic responsibilities, including executive powers delegated to him by Mandela, to such an extent that Mandela called him "a de facto president". Mandela had made it clear publicly since early 1995 or earlier that he intended to retire after one term in office, and by then Mbeki was already seen as his most likely successor.
1997: ANC president
In December 1997, the ANC's 50th National Conference elected Mbeki unopposed to succeed Mandela as ANC president. On some accounts, the election was not contested because the top leadership had prepared assiduously for the conference, lobbying and negotiating on Mbeki's behalf in the interest of unity and continuity. Pursuant to the 1999 national elections, which the ANC won by a significant majority, Mbeki was elected president of South Africa. He was re-elected for a second term in 2002.
Presidency of South Africa
Economic policy
Mbeki had been highly involved in economic policy as deputy president, especially in spearheading the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme, which was introduced in 1996 and remained a cornerstone of Mbeki's administration after 1999. In comparison to the Reconstruction and Development Programme policy which had been the basis of the ANC's platform in 1994, GEAR placed less emphasis on developmental and redistributive imperatives, and subscribed to elements of the liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation at the centre of Washington Consensus-style reforms. thumb|left|Mbeki speaks to [[District Six land claimants in Cape Town, 2001.|240x240px]]
Conservative groups such as the Cato Institute commended Mbeki's macroeconomic policies, which reduced the budget deficit and public debt and which according to them likely played a role in increasing economic growth. The discord between Mbeki and the left was on public display by December 2002, when Mbeki attacked what he called divisive "ultra-leftists" in a speech to the ANC's 51st National Conference.
However, Mbeki clearly never subscribed to undiluted neoliberalism. He retained various social democratic programmes and principles, and generally endorsed a mixed economy in South Africa. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, he explicitly advocated state support for the creation of a black capitalist class in South Africa. He advocated for greater solidarity among African countries and, in place of reliance on Western intervention and aid, for greater self-sufficiency for the African continent. Simultaneously, however, he argued for increased developmental aid to Africa.
Africa
Although Mbeki also forged strategic individual relationships with key African leaders, especially the heads of state of Nigeria, Algeria, Mozambique, and Tanzania, Olivier calls Mbeki the "seminal thinker" behind NEPAD and its "principal author and articulator". and his government spearheaded the introduction of the AU's African Peer Review Mechanism in 2003. He was twice chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), first from 1999 to 2000 and second, briefly, in 2008. Through these multilateral organisations and by contributing forces to various United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions, Mbeki and his government were involved in peacekeeping initiatives in African countries including Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi. He also pursued South-South solidarity in a coalition with India and Brazil under the IBSA Dialogue Forum, which was launched in June 2003 and held its first summit in September 2006. The IBSA countries together pressed for changes in the agricultural subsidy regimes of developed countries at the 2003 World Trade Organisation conference, and also pressed for reforms at the UN which would allow developing countries a stronger role. Indeed, Mbeki had called for reform at the UN as early as 1999 and 2000. thumb|Mbeki with Brazilian President [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva|Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the second IBSA summit in Pretoria, October 2007.]]In 2007, following a prolonged diplomatic campaign, Controversially, in February 2007, South Africa followed Russia and China in voting against a draft resolution calling for an end to political detentions and military attacks against ethnic minorities in Myanmar. Mbeki later told the media that the resolution exceeded the Security Council's mandate, and that its tabling had been illegal in terms of international law.
Quiet diplomacy in Zimbabwe
Mbeki's presidency coincided with an escalating political and economic crisis in South Africa's neighbour, Zimbabwe, under president Mugabe of ZANU-PF. Problems included land invasions under the "fast-track" land reform programme, political violence and state-sponsored human rights violations, and hyperinflation. With SADC's endorsement, Mbeki frequently acted as a mediator between ZANU-PF and the Zimbabwean opposition. However, controversially, his policy towards the Mugabe regime was one of non-confrontational "quiet diplomacy" and "constructive engagement": he refused to condemn Mugabe and instead attempted to persuade him to accept gradual political reforms. The Economist posited an "Mbeki doctrine" holding that South Africa "cannot impose its will on others, but it can help to deal with instability in African countries by offering its resources and its leadership to bring rival groups together, and to keep things calm until an election is safely held." Mbeki said in 2004:The motives behind Mbeki's Zimbabwe policy have been interpreted in various ways: for example, some suggest that he was attempting to maintain economic stability in Zimbabwe and therefore to protect South African economic interests, while others cite his attachment to ideals of African solidarity and opposition to what he perceived as quasi-imperial Western interference in Africa. In any case, Mbeki's policy on Zimbabwe attracted widespread criticism both domestically and internationally. Some also questioned Mbeki's neutrality in his role as mediator. After a South African observer mission endorsed the result of the Zimbabwean presidential election of 2002, in which Mugabe was re-elected, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai accused Mbeki of being a "dishonest broker" and his government of becoming "part of the Zimbabwe problem because its actions are worsening the crisis." A South African government observer mission also endorsed the result of the Zimbabwean parliamentary elections of 2005, apparently leading Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), to effectively sever relations with Mbeki's administration. thumb|Mbeki with Russian President [[Vladimir Putin in Cape Town, September 2006.]]
Power-sharing negotiations
Following another contested election in Zimbabwe – after which Mbeki controversially denied that there was a "crisis" in Zimbabwe – the MDC and ZANU-PF entered into negotiations towards the formation of a power-sharing government, with talks beginning in July 2008. Mbeki mediated the negotiations and brokered the resulting power-sharing agreement, signed on 15 September 2008, which retained Mugabe as president but diluted his executive power across posts to be held by opposition leaders.
HIV/AIDS
Policy and treatment
According to political scientist Jeffrey Herbst, Mbeki's HIV/AIDS policies were "bizarre at best, severely negligent at worst." Indeed, according to economist Nicoli Nattrass, resistance to the roll-out of antiretroviral drugs for prevention and treatment became central to the HIV/AIDS policy of Mbeki's government in subsequent years. A national mother-to-child transmission prevention programme was not introduced until 2002, when it was mandated by the Constitutional Court in response to a successful legal challenge by the Treatment Action Campaign. Similarly, chronic highly active antiretroviral therapy for AIDS-sick people was not introduced in the public healthcare system until late 2003, reportedly at the insistence of some members of Mbeki's cabinet.
Even after these programmes were introduced, Mbeki's appointee as Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, continued to advocate publicly for unproven alternative treatments in place of antiretrovirals, leading to continual calls by civil society for her dismissal.
Association with denialism
thumb|240x240px|Protest poster at the [[XIII International AIDS Conference, 2000|XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, July 2000.|left]]
While president, Mbeki was also criticised for his public messaging on HIV/AIDS. He was viewed as sympathetic to or influenced by the views of a small minority of scientists who challenged the scientific consensus that HIV caused AIDS and that antiretroviral drugs were the most effective means of treatment. In an April 2000 letter to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and the heads of state of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France, Mbeki pointed to differences in how the AIDS epidemic had manifested in Africa and in the West, and committed to "the search for specific and targeted responses to the specifically African incidence of HIV-AIDS." He also defended scientists who had challenged the scientific consensus on AIDS: